Danish company developing Ebola vaccine

Human trials scheduled for 2015

August 15, 201413:47

by CW

As the Ebola outbreak continues to claim lives, the Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic is currently testing a new Ebola vaccine on apes and expects to begin human trials in 2015, according to Medwatch.dk.

Bavarian Nordic has no plans to rush the vaccine into the market prematurely in response to the ongoing Ebola crisis, but it wouldn’t be adverse to the idea should the World Health Organisation come calling.

“Our technology MVA-BN, which our smallpox and Ebola vaccine is based on, has been shown to have a very favourable side-effect profile,” Ole Larsen, the financial head of Bavarian Nordic, told Medwatch.dk.

Could save lives
Larsen went on to explain that no serious side effects had been registered with the companies smallpox vaccine, so he didn’t think that there would be much chance that the MVA-BN-based Ebola vaccine would have serious side effects either.

“This remedy is at a very early development stage in terms of seeing if it works, but if we can help save a lot of human lives by testing it before it’s approved, that is something we would discuss internally and seriously consider,” Larsen said.